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We do popup attacks against SA-10's, 6's and 11's all the time. If you plan your route out properly and use good terrain avoidance, they're very easy to kill. Definitely no match for an A-10C with 6 AGM-65D's. You're outmatched in a flat terrain environment though. And if people build missions with scattered manpads, you're always looking around for that random missile shot. But otherwise, long range SAM's don't intimidate us like they used to. If I were an Eastern block SAM operator I'd be terrified of the thought of A-10C's and AH-64D Longbows popping up from behind hills and lobbing F&F A2G missiles at me.

Sure if your in it for the challenge. but thats not realistic scenario.

A) A10's would never get sent to partake SEAD mission. ( unless this pops up as the AF idea of finally "retiring" the A10) At the very lest they would be supported By Sead Capable Fighter aircraft.

B) one cannot plan route accordingly if you don;t know exactly beforehand where sams are, and generally speaking you shouldnt,. . S300s and various other systems s can be erected and dismantlement in under 1 hour and moved elsewhere IRL, allowing for them swift transport to cover different sectors in the same day or stage a total ambush in a area Sams would not be expected.

because of this, you shouldn't know exactly where they are, if you really want a realistic scenario, at absolute BEst A general Area. something aking to a kill box, The exception to this would be Airfields or other such very obvious strategic sites that are going to be obviosly going to be defended at all times by a Air Defense layer , otherwise its not so simple to obtain intelligence to be actionable to act on it fast enough, particularily if SAm sites are careful with thier radar Operation.

C) Attacking sam sites still easier in DCS because they just leave thier radar on all day. Skilled Sam operators would be able to play a cat and mouse game.

Just look how Scott O Grady was shot down over Bosnia. the Serbs used thier radars sparingly to avoid being targeted by SEAD aircraft. but long enough to detect a target and turned it off. 2 F16 pilots onm a routine No fly zone patrol dismissed the Brief spike as a RWR false alarm. It was not an area known for SAM sites, Serbs launched a Missile from an SA6 when they flew directly overhead ( in ideal engagement range) , Turned on Radar and locked target after the fact. not giving The Pilot enough time to react to pop CM or perform any defensive maneuvers. 1 pilot was shot down from 2 missiles fired.

You underestimate the ability of ISR to find and fix targets, even camouflaged mobile ones.

Scott O'Grady got shot down because he was a shitty wingman and pilot; not because the SA-6 battery had awesome TTPs.

look at how much of a challenge it was to spot scuds in the open deserts of Iraq. And react in time before they dismantled scuttled to setup elsewhere. You are overestimating ISR.

And that's an unfair judgement, and disrepsectuffll to dismiss him. It just as easily could have been the leader who got shot down, given he was making the call of what do in such situation. This was just an example .This wasnt the only aircraft shot down by sams since the end of the cold war. Sorry but the sam operators did know what they were doing. IFthey had simply switched on radar and began locking right away, it would have given the pilots more time to react, and not be in ideal engaagemnt range. In actuality it would have spooked the pilots as they would have high tailed it out of there, given they were in a A2A config and did not have any way to attack save for a gun run which would have required getting close.

It was an ambush. The sam were in an area they weren't expected and the operators knew what they were doing. They didn't just switch on the radar and keep it on and target when they got in range like so does in dcs. If there anything that's lacking it's behaviour of sams in dcs.

Again there hasn't been a conventional conflict were modern ISR has actually been put to the test in actual field combat against a conventional modern military with an air defense network. THese examples are fine Dcs scenarios can range from cold war to modern era, and even in Modern era WE dont have the absolute latest and greatest technology. Only on what they can gather enough data on. Again O grady was not the only pilot lost to sams in the post Cold war era. This was just a notable and very well documented example that people are more familar with.

If it was so easy to Detect. Americans wouldn't be fretting over having to deal and identify Russian air defenses in a hypothetical Ukraine intervention or in Syria in areas protected by thier systems. ( not that these will happen, but what if)

it doesn't change argument the usefulness of how displacing defenses and disciplined use of sams can make pilots lives much harder and give them less reaction time, actually being useful for ambush . Again O Grady is not the only pilot to have been on the reviving end of such tactics. Which you have avoided disputing because cleary there is nothing to argue against save for trying to act a contrarian on other areas stooping down to straw man arguments which has served nothing but to distract from the true point at hand.

But sure itl be more convenient for your argument to just dismiss any pilot shot down as ****.

This whole line of conversation is actually off topic, so you'll forgive me not typing a wall of text listing current ISR capabilities and associated TTPs. Oh yeah, there's also the trivial matter that I'm not going to jail for discussing classified ISR capabilities and TTPs. You'll just have to settle for vague comments pointing out that your assessment is based on information which is close to 30 years old and does not accurately reflect the current state of the art.

You also make some assumptions regarding when, where, and how ISR assets have been employed. I would argue it's unlikely you have any direct knowledge of US capabilities or operations. If you did, you wouldn't be able to talk about it in anything other than the broadest strokes.

Regarding the shoot down, i thought we were talking about a specific incident, not the whole period since the end of the cold war? Regardless, it sounds like you're making the argument that I claimed optical engagements, radar discipline, and shoot-n-scoot tactics have no value. Of course, I didn't say any such thing. I said the pilot involved in the cited incident made a lot of mistakes, according to the pilots and instructors who flew with him.

Again, you'll have to forgive me for not engaging in a discussion regarding specific classified threat reactions and TTPs. You'll have to settle for more vague comments pointing out that smart people think about the tactical problems posed by adversary threat systems and tactics. Research, development, testing, and validation of countertactics is a real thing. It doesn't mean we're invulnerable, it just means we have methods to mitigate risk, increase survivability, and enhance lethality.

Bottom line: there's no point in discussing any of this. The concepts and planning factors are extremely complex and discussed in very thick classified manuals. It's just not possible to have a meaningful discussion on an internet forum.

Please contribute what you can to the discussion. Obviously you are knowledgeable on the matter. If you insist this conversation is moot because of the subject matter, then don't go cruising for trouble arguing with people and making attacks on the pilot whilst providing no evidence for your statements.

Also, if you do have access to classified information like you claim, then somebody must have briefed you on OPSEC and the steps involved. Let's apply some OPSEC measures and not disclose so openly the fact that you have access to Critical Information.